Most readers of Anna Raccoon are likely to be at least aware of the existence of Left Foot Forward (“Evidence based blogging”), which is effectively a noticeboard for Think Tanks and Policy Analysts.
When Left Foot Forward launched in August 2009, it was only a couple of weeks before Paul Waugh pointed out a basic evidential mistake, and these have been repeated regularly, providing a ‘pin the tail on the error’ game for bloggers ever since.
Often, the site is better represented as “Carefully selected evidence based blogging” or “Oops. we left out some of the evidence” based blogging, but that’s not really a surprise to anyone who reads it critically with Google at their elbow.
Yesterday Left Foot Forward carried an article by Kevin Meagher about the traveller settlement at Dale Farm, under the title, “The ‘Dalits’ of Dale Farm have needs too“. His view is a little different to that expressed by Anna this week.
First of all, I’d suggest that the ‘Dalits’ (ie ‘Untouchables‘) comparison fails because there is a legal, approved, and accepted traveller settlement merely feet away from the illegally developed houses. And because these houses are being treated in exactly the same way as happens to many other illegally developed houses; unauthorised development is being removed.
But my main focus here is that Kevin’s article contains an astonishing attack on Essex County Council.
In his argument Kevin points out that health amongst traveller communities is far worse than average; this is true. He points out that life expectancy amongst travellers is much lower than average; this is true if you read statistics across from Ireland and assume them to be accurate for England, which is at least defensible as no statistics exist in this country.
And he asserts that the local County Council in Essex is failing to provide information about access to basic Health and Welfare services.
This last claim is astonishing.
Here are Kevin Meagher’s words:
Essex County Council, which is responsible for the education and social services of the Dale Farm traveller families, boasts on its “Service for Gypsies and Travellers” webpage that it has a “robust range of services and support available”. In reality, this appears to be little more than a series of links relating to enforcement policies.
An unfair emphasis given DCLG figures show more than four out of five travellers live on authorised sites.
This only serves as a microcosm of the wider problem; with Travellers framed as a ‘problem’ to be managed, rather than people who deserve basic respect and access to decent services. There is no mention on the county council site about any health or welfare services or any guidance about how to access them. This is especially galling as the Irish Travellers and Gypsies suffer from positively medieval health inequalities and a markedly reduced life expectancy that should shame any decent society.
Got it? The webpage consists of a series of links related to enforcement policies.
Hmm. The webpage directly linked is here, and I have saved a screendump here.
It contains 5 sections.
Section 1: An Introductory Paragraph
Essex County Council and other statutory authorities within the Essex area are committed to ensuring that relationships between settled communities and Gypsy and Traveller communities remain respectful and lawful. We provide a range of services to Gypsy and Traveller communities
- Essex CC Traveller Sites
seeking to promote good community relations between the settled and Gypsy/Traveller communities.
Fair enough, I’d say.
Section 2: Permanent local authority sites
Which links to a page listing the 11 sites provided by Essex County Council, providing no fewer than 174 places, plus 12 more on the new Colchester site, which was given planning permission in late 2010, in the face of protests from ‘furious campaigners’.
So dastardly are Essex CC, that they maliciously provide a dedicated helpline for Gypsy & Traveller Services on 0845 603 7624.
Section 3: Unauthorised Encampment Policy
Yep. A section with a single link to the Code for travellers in Essex, which starts:
A nomadic way of life is not against the law. From time to time groups of Gypsies/Travellers come to Essex and temporarily camp on local authority owned land. The code for Travellers in Essex is a policy for the management of unauthorised camping. The Code applies to all land in Essex County Council ownership. District/borough Councils and private landowners will instigate their own eviction action.
Subject to the satisfactory assessment of the following factors, Essex authorities will not normally pursue an order for the removal of vehicles from any land on which they are stationed for a period up to 28 days.
That is, action won’t be taken against illegal encampments which last up to a month. Hardly draconian.
If you want to acquaint yourself with full viciousness of the policy, why not read the rest.
Section 4:Local Authority Contact List
Essex being a County Council in a two-tier area, they provide a list of links to Borough, District and Unitary Councils responsible for providing certain services to travellers.
Section 5:Education
The final section describes the education service, for which Essex CC are responsible:
Essex County Council has a robust range of services and support available to Gypsy and Traveller communities of all ethnic origins. The Essex County Council website provides details of education services for both adults and children.
This section is where Left Foot Forward get their “robust range of support services” phrase from.
Having reviewed the page, I have no idea how this matches the conclusion, and how Kevin jumped to the conclusions above. To my non-legal brain, the difference between what he says the Council say, and what they actually say, may constitute cause for a legal action.
It’s quite a surprise, as Kevin Meagher is a fairly senior communications’ professional who has even worked as a Ministerial Adviser.
As such, he must surely be capable of reading a web page, and reporting the contents.
More seriously for the substance of Kevin’s argument, Essex CC’s efforts to provide sites and useful information undermine the allegation that travellers are treated as a ‘problem’ to be ‘managed’, and leave the case quite seriously undermined.
Elsewhere in the article, Kevin states that:
Basildon Council remains resolute, willing to countenance spending £8 million on the eviction. A statement from council leader, Tony Ball, insiststhey have spent “ten years trying to avoid a forced clearance”.
It is a shame they have not spent the last decade looking at more imaginative solutions that might have avoided the need to do so.
Actually, Basildon explain on their own website that they have spent 10 years trying to engage with the occupants for a decade, and are still offering private meetings and Council support as required by law. Here is the full quote:
Council officers have offered private meetings to the affected Traveller families to discuss how the Council could help them in their efforts to relocate.
This offer of help has remained on the table throughout the past 10 years. Unfortunately few families have sought a meeting with our officers.
There is no need for the elderly, the vulnerable or the young to live on the roadside as has been suggested.
The Council recognises there is a shortage of legal places for the travellers to go to and therefore extra time is being allowed to ensure that those who want to leave and find somewhere else to live can do so.
If the travellers cannot find somewhere suitable they are encouraged to make homelessness applications and accommodation will be found for those to whom the Council owes a duty under the homelessness legislation.
For those who take up the offer of Local Authority housing, which is recognised as not the preferred housing choice of travellers, it does mean that until more suitable accommodation can be found, they can still access education, health and care services easily.
So what happened when Kevin was framing his argument?
And what happened to Left Foot Forward to come up with this line of attack, or how it made it through editorial fact-checking?
I have not got the foggiest idea, but ‘Evidence Based Blogging’ it is not.
That didn’t stop 60 people retweeting it, though.
Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon Arms. Follow me on Twitter.
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THAT is a seriously good post Matt – congratulations.
There has been some mendacious misinformation running throughout the campaign on behalf of those Dale Farm residents who have flouted the planning law.
From the above, Essex CC seem to be most helpful to gypsies, offering more than they need to by law and providing them with many support services. The issue is with these so-called “travellers”, i.e., settlers, who are deliberately flouting the law, as if it’s 1849 in the Klondike. They knew there was no planning permission for settling on the extra site from the start. But I’m sure facts will not stop various confused left-wing groups from making a fight of it.
To answer your last question Matt, they are following the party line, simples.
Cynic
Or, I suppose, realist.
My take (if I’m being uncharitable) on the Dale Farm support protest is the same as it was for the Southwark Protest yesterday.
The fluffy anticuts narrative having collapsed with eg Jody McIntyre having made a lot m0re people aware that he supports street violence (Heeellllooooooo Jody – it’s a democracy), and the key promotional commentators having self-immolated (Hari) or backed down, the mad left needs for fuel for it’s bandwagon.
And the latest protests are it.
I agree with you Matt.
There is a lot of disinformation being pumped out by the lefties about this.
I googled Dale Farm and a sponsored link popped up from Amnesty.
Basildon Council should increase their Adwords bid.
I see that the UN have sided with the so called “travellers” now.
Next thing they’ll be getting NATO to bomb Basildon Council!
Cheers.
Methinks the UN may not have all the history.
Maybe the UN just don’t understand UK planning regulations.
Now the UN acts! //In a statement, the UN committee [on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination] said the evictions would “disproportionately affect the lives of the Gypsy and traveller families, particularly women, children and older people”.
It said the evictions would create hardship, and called on the government to suspend them “until culturally appropriate accommodation is identified and provided”.
The statement added: “The committee urges the state party to find a peaceful and appropriate solution which fully respects the rights of the families involved.
“Travellers and Gypsies already face considerable discrimination and hostility in wider society and the committee is deeply concerned that this could be worsened by actions taken by authorities in the current situation and by some media reporting on the issues.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-14763905
What is it about ‘you break the law – you suffer the consequences’ that the left, including the UN, don’t understand.
I thought ‘travellers’ were, by definition, travellers. These people have given up that life style by bypassing planning law and setting up non travelling housing, therefore they cease to be a protected cultural minority and have turned into just another part of the general public.
Simples …
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